The Fortunate Youth

with complacency and set his foot on it, litt

tily of his

to earn your living?" a

ul replied. "I think I am a poet, bu

and play love

he had mastered by the aid of a sixpenny handbook, and he would play on i

disregarding the tribute. "Something will

oving f

of Destiny

edicted, something did happ

oved this window, had loved it from the moment of discovery, a couple of years before. It was a Temple of Fame. The fact of your portrait being exhibited, wit

m adoringly and wondered wh

would shift his position, so as to obtain a glimpse of his own features in the plate-glass window, and compare them with those of the famous. Thus he would determine that he had the brow of the divine, the nose of the state

, his eye caught and was fascinated by a single portrait. He sto

ed his arm. "What

. "Do you

ame, of whom legend hath it that his photographs were bought in thou

ers clustered round the window. "There's nothi

imes better look

intelligenc

rse," s

o be an acto

e. Then her sturdy common-sense a

've only got to have the genius to

question his genius,

said he, "and when I'm not

bear a shaft of raillery. "You'll leave your

s and soaring ambitions of eighteen. Your sense of humour, that delicate percipience of proportion, that subrident check on impulse, that touch of the divine fellowship with human frailty, is a thing of mellower growth. It is a solvent and not an exc

to be a great man. I know it. If I'm not going to be a great actor, I shall be a great something else. God doesn't put such things into people's heads for nothi

re going back to the

myself. But-that getting right wit

ite know wh

ined t

consider. I don't look on it as ego-what-d'-you-call-it to strike out for my

y to my parents, don'

can't see that you do, considering

me," he protested vehemently.

much trouble abo

d: "Don't you see I'm proud of you for yourself and not for your silly old pa

e talking about," he said loftily.

find his parents, he vowed to himself, if only to spite Jane. Presently his ear caught a little sniff, and looking down

love you, Paul," sh

o in here"-they were passing a confect

through one of his assistants who had a friend in the

laughed. "I've wondered how you stuck i

ng on th

u going to

an actor, he would be able to tell me. I

just ordinary actors-not managers; and I should

sisted. "They'll tell me how

dvised him to sweep crossings, black shoes, break stones by the roadside, cart manure, sell tripe or stocks and shares, blow out his brains rather than en

picked up from his reading. And filled with one of the purest joys of the young liter

flower to the sun. It was the first time he had spoken with an educated man on common ground-a man to whom the great imaginative English writers were familiar friends, who ran from Chaucer to Lamb and from Dryden to Browning with amazing facility. T

rehearsals for an elaborate romantic production than a knowledge of The Faerie Queene, obtained for him an immediate engagement-to walk on as a gilded youth of I

s glowed. "You

ied Paul modestly

t a big part

lly, I haven't any lines to speak"-he had at once caught up the

d me orders to come a

box," declared Pau

ger would pause in the breath of an impassioned utterance and cry out, "Oh, my God! stop that hammering!" where nothing looked the least bit in the world like the lovely ordered picture he had been accustomed to delight in from the shilling gallery-after the first few days he began to focus this strange world and to suffer its fascination. And he was proud of the silent part allotted to him, a lazy lute-player in at

yer could play a few chords here-or the orchestra for him-it would he

tunity. "I can play t

tor, and the next day rehearsed with a real instrument which he twanged in the

ped the advantage of having played "the sedulous ape" to his patrons of the studios. His tricks were somewhat exaggerated; his sweep of the hat when ladies passed him at the stage door entrance was lower than custom deems necessary; he was quicker in courteous gesture than the young men from the universities; he bowed more deferentially to an interlocutor than is customary outside Court circles; but they were all the tricks of good breeding. More than one girl aske

grass, unconsciously feeling the need of them in his mental and moral development. Besides, the attitude of the women reminded him of that of the women painters in his younger days. He had no intention of playing the pet monkey again. His masculinity revolted. The young barbarian clamoured. A hard day on the river he found much more to his taste than sporting in the shade of a Kensington flat over tea and sandwiches with

were midges. "I'm sick of girls," he replied in

lump me with the rest

ul. "You're not a girl-not in t

prettier than what I a

y colourless checks were flushed, her blue eyes shone bright, her little chin was in the air and her parted lips showed a flash of white teeth. She

e them all

now? We've got to make up, otherwise no one in front would be able to see our mout

uld I know tha

you saw us-or were to

look bea

" he l

id, childish yet very feminine unreason combining with a

it," said Paul,

orrid to pain

behind the shop-a flash of anger in his eyes. "If y

ealous of the theatre girls; but had he not been proving to her all the time in what small account he held them? And now he had gone. At seve

au

es

ck! Do c

nd followed her

rry," s

accountable folk whose excursions into unreason should be regarded by man with pitying indulgen

rds the end of the run of the piece. He waited, by arrangement, for Paul outside the stage door, and Paul, coming o

pint tankard-"it seems rum that you should be standing me drinks at a swell place like this. It s

since then, have

the well-clad throng of loungers, some in evening dress, the half-dozen gorgeous ladies sitting with men at little tables

vender-coloured trousers of eccentric shape, and a funny little billycock hat too small for him, and a thunder-and-lightning necktie, all of which he had purchased nearly twenty years ago to grace a certain wedding at which he had been best man. Since

wind of God and the smell of

," said Paul. "I'm

d. There are some as likes electric light and some as likes the stars. Gimme the stars." And in his cou

sagely, "and if I were a free agent I'd join you tomorrow. But you can't find fame. You can't rise to gr

ways like that. You haven't come any nearer finding your 'i

dream that they would find me and do everything for me. Now I'm a man with experience of life, I find that I've got to do ev

f a billycock hat and scratched his cropped

ineteen,"

" said Ba

h angle. He looked like a music-hall humouri

e-and nobody can do nothing for you but yerself. Poor ol

yishly. "If it hadn't been for you, I should

d acquiescence as he

ve grown up-what induced you

ide and regarded him queerly.

"You must have h

ted in them parents of y

l he would say

couple of lines, of which he was given one to speak. He now was in very truth an actor. Jane could no longer taunt him in her naughty moods (invariably followed by bitter repentance) wit

of his high destiny being at once her glory and her despair; but, as regards herself, her outlook on life was cool and sober. Paul was peacock born; it was for him to strut about in iridescent plumage. She was a humble daw and knew her station. It must be said that Paul held out the stage as a career more on account of the social st

n that she paid for her keep. This she was soon able to do when she obtained a situation with a business firm in the city. The work was hard and the salary small; but Jane had a brave heart and held her head high. In her s

it, or you'd be making a fool of yourself over that young ac

as too pro

mbled at his wants unministered to in his new lodgings. He waved away prospective discomfort: what did it matter? He was a man and could rough it. It was she herself whose loss would be irreparable. She sighed; he would soon forget her. He vowed undying remembrance by all his gods. Some beautiful creature of the theatre would carry him off. He laughed at such an absurdity. Jane would always be his confidante, his intimate. Even though they lived under differe

ere, what's the good o

ou, silly dear," he

is neck impulsively. "Don't quite forget me, Paul. It would

ly cold; far from it. But, you see, he lived intensely in his dream, and only on its outer fringe had Jane her place. In the heart of it, hidden in amethystine mist, from which only flashed the diadem on her hair, dwelt the exquisite, the incomparable lady, the princess who should share his kingdom, while he knelt at her feet and worshipped her and kissed the rosy tips of her calm fingers. So, as it never entered his head to kiss the finger tips of poor Jane, it never entered his head to fancy

es, nothing perfunctory, was duly grateful, and gave him of her girlish best. She developed very quickly after her entrance into the world of struggle. Very soon it was the woman and not the child who listened to the marvellous youth's st

Paul went